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True to their name, carapacians have shiny, firm, yet supple carapaces and, like humans, red blood. The only exception seen to this so far is Snowman who had blue blood. It should be noted that this was not due to her being royalty, as with trolls, as both the White Queen and King, as well as the Black King, and the Black Queen of the B1 universe were shown to have red blood. Rather, this color signifies her tie to the lifeline of the Alternian universe, which is represented by blue, and likely occurred after, and possibly because of, her induction into the Felt. All carapacians besides the royalty of the kingdoms have barcodes on their wrists due to being cloned in The Veil. It is implied that they are made from the genetic material of the royalty. They resemble chess pieces, due to their serving a similar purpose. Carapacians come in many shapes and sizes, some having flat teeth and others fangs, some having claws and others variable numbers of fingers, but it's most likely that they're differing species within the same genus.

It is at least known that carapacians have ribs, a spine and a pelvis, but, being in sprite-form in the example, it is unclear if there are bones in the arms and legs . The black queen, when drawn in detail, is shown to have jointed limbs. As seen during Cascade, the other carapacians do too and the detail is simply not shown most of the time.

Unlike Underlings and the monsters of The Battlefield, carapacians are not directly affected by player prototypings unless bearing a Queen's Ring or King's Scepter, and in fact are the only ones who can use them. This is probably a reference to how pawns can become Queens when they reach the end of the chessboard. Carapacians also seem to have perfect spatial memory, stemming from their genetic material and roles.

They also appear to have some instinctual sense for the mythological roles of players they interact with, with WV's instincts going so far as to have a sense that John was being trained by a Thief (Vriska).

Every session has a king and queen from both Prospit and Derse. The kings lead their armies against each other on the Battlefield, while the queens stay on their respective planets to rule their kingdoms. They are augmented by each player's prototypings, connected to the prototyping spires on Prospit and Derse. In standard sessions the Dersite Queen and King will serve as the final bosses of the game.

On the Battlefield, at the center of Skaia the black and white king lead their armies in a battle to destroy/protect Skaia. Their forces are composed of Chess piece-themed Carapacians, Pawns being by far the largest part of it.

Agents are high-ranking members of one of the two kingdoms in the Incipisphere fighting over Skaia. They have a variety of ranks, with the Archagent being directly below the king and queen. They deal with the affairs of their kingdom, and are under the command of the kingdom's respective queen, though sometimes they revolt. Their special status as an agent is denoted by a symbol on their clothes, usually a simple pentagon. Jack Noir and his close circle of agents have the 4 suits of cards as symbols instead.

The kingdoms also seem to have farmers, postal couriers, painters, and presumably a variety of other essential jobs. They seem to be lower in rank than the agents, and are more alike to regular employees. Carapacians that do not serve as pawns on the Battlefield are implied to serve their kingdoms in other ways.

Sometimes, carapacians are exiled from the Incipisphere to the post-apocalyptic host planet of the session, and get there by the Reckoning. They wander around in the desert, until they eventually find and activate bases. They are still able to influence events by suggesting commands to their respective players. According to Terezi they are also tasked with the reintroduction of civilization to the meteor-ravaged planet.